What is Transition?

Transition Town initiatives began in 2006 and Totnes was one of the first towns to declare itself to be in transition - so what does that mean?

The initial impetus for Transition was Peak Oil. Without cheap fossil fuels, many of the things we take for granted become impossible, and our dependency makes us vulnerable. Bring Climate Change into the equation, and reducing our dependency on fossil fuels becomes logical, urgent and ethically imperative. Here in the global North we emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases, which inextricably tie us into a future of run-away climate change/chaos across the world unless we change the way we live, now, finding ways of living that respect the biological limits of the planet. Many of the projects and proposals that have come from TTT explore ways we might do that. Imagine if we can design all our everyday activities so they work more like plants or, even better, a woodland ecosystem. There are no waste bins in natural woodland - anything that is produced by one plant or creature is used by another, especially CO2!

The global financial crash of 2008 made it clear that thriving communities need flourishing local economies to weather large global events. Economic growth, as measured by governments and mainstream economists, is utterly dependent on energy use. It always has been. Transition challenges the idea that we need economic growth in conventional terms. Transition proposes new ways to regenerate the economy by making things much more local again and really cutting down on fossil fuel dependence. This could be hugely economically advantageous to our communities, with significant potential for more local skills and employment.

The social justice impacts of climate change and austerity, and of being part of a world fighting to take control of every last oil reserve and natural resource, are other reasons we have for needing to rise to this challenge.

What we do - the three Rs
There are three main strands to our work; increasing local resilience, reducing energy use and building a regenerative local economy through relocalisation, and the promotion of regenerative development:

Resilience - the ability of a system (an individual, an economy, a town or a city) to withstand shock from the outside. In Transition we go beyond this definition, instead seeing it is a desired state; the rebuilding of which could be hugely economically advantageous to our local communities.

Relocalisation - actively promotes the idea of going beyond the concept of ‘localism’ - the devolving of political power to the local level - towards 'localisation’; meeting of our core needs locally (food, building materials, energy...), which has huge potential for our local economies, while also reducing oil dependency and carbon emissions.

Regenerative development - development of Totnes and District for the public benefit of its citizens by reducing reliance on scarce resources including oil, thus meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs.

In practice, Transition works by inviting people to take ownership of the process; by not claiming to have all the answers but encouraging creativity, and by building networks with other organisations.  It is based on the model of ‘project support’; the role of Transition is to catalyse and support, rather than to hold and manage a wide range of projects. An essential part of the Transition method is visioning. We believe in a positive vision of the future and work to make it real.

We have a load of videos on YouTube if you’d like to delve deeper into our ethos and history. Here is one to whet your appetite (enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser).